Red Hair, Broken Glass and Emerald Eyes
by C.M. Oliver is eastwoodgirl
Summary: A doubting mind is a dangerous one - and one such mind finds out that there is no other sound louder than silence. One-sided Snarry. Implied SS/LE. Disregards DH. EWE. Warning for disturbing images. Now a TWO-SHOT! COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Red Hair, Broken Glass and Emerald Eyes**

**A/N: Something I wrote just because I felt like it.**

**WARNING: Rated T for Delicate themes and disturbing images.**

**DISCLAIMER: Just the idea… everything else, I do not own.**

**010101010**

Harry stepped out of the floo ungracefully. He never did manage the poise and grace he exhibited up in the air on the ground with his feet. I had been a long day at practice; the Canons needed their star seeker to be in tip top shape.

The raven-haired, green eyes man brushed the soot of his orange robes and immediately headed for the bedroom he shared with his husband of ten years. It was empty. He sighed as he transfigured his robes into a pajama. His husband worked long hours at the school –it was always like this.

As he flopped down on the bed though, he noticed something.

On the pillow next to his, sat a long strand of perfectly auburn hair.

It wasn't the first time.

It was always like this.

Harry sat up and plucked the red hair off of the pillow and carefully made his way to his bureau. He spelled the lowest drawer open. Fighting the urge to scream, he glanced at the contents: an old photograph of two wizards, a few letters –and a jar filled to the brim… with loose strands of flaming red hair. Harry smiled bitterly. It has been 10 years –he already had enough for a full wig of red hair that could rival any of the Weasleys'. He carefully added his latest find in and closed the lid shut.

Muffled footsteps could be heard from downstairs.

His husband was home.

Harry quickly jumped into the bed and closed his eyes as the door opened. A few seconds later, he felt the other side of the bed dip lower. Then a few minutes later, faint snores were heard.

After what felt like hours later, the green-eyed man dared to open the said eyes and face the other man who shared his bed.

Severus' back was against his.

It was always like this.

For the first time in 10 years, Harry decided that looking at his husband's back was no longer enough. His mind drifted to their first night in that very same bed, 10 fateful years ago; how Severus praised and worshipped every bit of him, but never once taking his black, obsidian eyes from his own bright emerald ones; how he writhed in both pain and ecstasy as he let his one true love claim him for the first time; how they both reached the heights of passion in tandem; how he screamed Severus' name in pure delight – only to have the older man moan another's name as he came.

"_**Lily."**_

Lily, he said.

Harry shook his head. It was over ten years ago, but the thought still brought pain and shame to his heart. Tears started to stain his pillow.

"_**Lay still! Keep your hands to yourself! Don't you dare close your eyes!"**_

His eyes.

He wasn't allowed to do anything with his eyes closed. And Harry had faithfully conceded to that request for the past ten years.

Now, he was tired of it.

He loved Severus with all his heart but for the first time in ten years, he doubted that love.

Carefully, he slid off the bed and made his way back towards his dresser, spelled the lowest drawer open and took the jar of hair with him back towards their bed. He did not know how may witches and wizards contributed to his bizarre collection, but he whispered a silent thanks to them anyway. With trembling hands, he unscrewed the jar and emptied its contents on his side of the bed. With the jar empty and with the dim lighting of the room, the curved glass became almost mirror-like; Harry then saw his own image. He found himself staring at his own pair of emerald eyes from the curvature of the glass jar.

'_Eyes that were never mine,'_ he corrected himself. _'Much like Severus will never be mine.'_

**010101010**

The morning after, Severus Snape, Potions Master, Order of Merlin Second Class, Ex-spy and War Hero would be down on his knees, on the floo with Headmistress Minerva McGonagall of Hogwarts and Poppy Pomfrey Mediwitch extraordinaire. He would be deeply distressed; yelling, panicking, crying even – about something. He then would be screaming, ranting, crying even – about flaming red hair all over his bed, broken glass strewn all over the carpet, a bleeding husband, on the brink of death… an a pair of painfully familiar emerald eyes… floating inside a jar filled with pickling solution… right by his bedside table.

**010101010**

**A/N: Done! Your thoughts? Please review! Love, Eastwoodgirl**


	2. Chapter 2

**RED HAIR, BROKEN GLASS, AND EMERALD EYES**

**DISCLAIMER/ WARNING: ****Same as first chapter**

**A/N: This was just supposed to be a one-shot when I started it a while ago… for some reason, this conclusion came to me so I decided to write it. I debated on whether to put this up separately or add it here. You can pretty much tell which won over. As always, feedback is always appreciated. Without further ado, I present you Severus' POV of that fateful tragedy and its immediate aftermath.**

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A week later after Severus Snape last cried, the carpet in the master bedroom had been stripped, baring the dark hardwood flooring. It was stained.

The room's former occupant sat in the huge king-sized bed that still adorned the middle of the otherwise empty space. Everything else had either been thrown out, 'incedioed' or passed on to homeless shelters.

There was nothing left for him –nothing he could take without his guilt creeping up his conscience.

The white washed walls of the room were closing in on him. He could not seem to breathe all of a sudden. He stood up on shaky legs, stepped outside and closed the door behind him. His onyx eyes them roamed around, taking in the rest of the house into his vision.

Empty.

Suddenly, his head started to pound, an unseen mallet perhaps? His vision clouded until everything was nothing but a blur.

Then, he felt his cheeks dampening.

Were those tears? No, not again…

When he cried, he'd remember those eyes –those brilliant emerald eyes that once held so much life and desire and passion for him.

Lily's –no Harry's eyes.

They would now always be Harry's eyes.

His heart clenched at the thought, his mind spinning madly in the vision. No matter how hard he tried, he fruitlessly managed to forget seeing those eyes… floating like pickled potions ingredients inside that glass jar.

The tears were now a steady stream.

What had he done?

He thought back to that fateful day.

Blood… glass… hair… everywhere –Oh Merlin! What has happened? The other side of the bed was empty. Had someone attacked in their sleep? Had they been that complacent in the absence of war? Severus was so tires coming home from his current illicit rendezvous with Jane –Janila –Jamilla –what was –who cared what her name was? She was an incredible fuck, and she had this gorgeous mane of auburn. No, no time to be reminiscing now.

The wards in their home were a rival to Hogwarts'. No one could have broken in –then why all the mess? Severus snatched his wand, his still fuzzy brain failing to register yet the odd spread of red hair on the other side of the bed. He loved red hair. It always reminded him of Lily.

There was only one thing that could have happened. He tiptoed to the open bedroom door. Across the hall, the door to the bathroom was ajar. Soft yellow light was peeking through.

Harry always left the bathroom door open. His stint at the cupboard under the stairs drove out his love for confined spaces.

Severus frowned. His gaze went back to the bedroom then back towards the bathroom door. The trail of hair and glass and blood followed.

It was a mess.

Harry's mess.

What the heck was that brat thinking?

Blood… glass… hair… everywhere.

Severus pushed the bathroom door open.

He'd never forget that day.

He scrambled back to the bedroom to pull on a coat.

Harry's bleeding!

The younger man's face was drenched in blood –but oh, what a sweet, sweet smile he had!

Severus lit a fire in the grate to floo call Poppy, Harry's personal healer –he would not let anyone else see to him. The jar of floo powder was not in its usual place by the mantel. Onyx eyes gazed until it rested on a familiar-looking glass jar by his bedside table.

His heart skipped a beat. His mind froze.

Was that floo powder scattered on the table?

Each step he took towards it was painful, contrived.

Floo powder used to be inside the jar –he remembered how he threw a fit when Harry took his spare specimen jar and filled it with the acid green dust.

"_**Go buy an urn, for Merlin's sake!"**_

Harry just laughed but came home the following night with a new set of… specimen jars.

"_**It's cheaper than buying an urn, Sev,"**_

His knees gave way, the soft carpet cushioning his kneecaps –it would still bruise though. Severus' skin bruised easily, ironically. Harry called him 'delicate' –the nerve!

The jar before him now held a most wondrous thing.

His breath hitched as the growing sunrise breached the bedroom windows and hit the clear glass.

It was beautiful, but oh so horrifying –to be suspended –as if in air –inside the glass jar by its lonesome. It was then that he had realized that it wasn't just the eyes, but the person who once possessed them…

With shaking hands, he grabbed a fistful of floo powder, careful not to disturb the jar. He stumbled all the way to the fireplace and threw it in.

The flames turned emerald, like those haunting eyes in that jar.

Severus Snape screamed and cried and pleaded –until he was hoarse and out cold.

What had he done?

**01010101010101010101010**

It was already too late.

Before, there was only one thing that he regretted the most –calling Lily Evans a mudblood. The memory haunted him day and night like an annoying attic ghoul. For him, everything started to crumble that day; He lost his only chance of redemption.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Then came her son –he'd never thought of the young man as another chance, but a chance Harry did become for him.

More than redemption, he gave him reason…

To hate, to love; to doubt, to believe; to change, to remain; to live, to lie…

It was all a lie.

Sometimes people hold on to things, not because they cannot let go, but simply because there is nothing else to hold on to.

Severus held onto Lily… even after her marriage to James Potter… even after her death…

Even after Harry came into his life and the young man had started to worm his way onto the Potions Master's bed… eventually his life –but his heart, you ask? Never his heart, Severus would say.

In the dark, it had been easier to pretend as most things that differentiated the son from the mother disappeared in the absence of light. For more than a decade he had lived in the illusion if the abyss, finding solace.

But it was never enough.

In the light, he began to find more things of the mother that the sin did not posses.

Thus, his obsession with red hair.

It had all been nameless faces to him –men and women. No other name and face mattered other than Lily's.

It had always been Lily.

Her face, her hair, her eyes…

Always,

He lived in that sick fantasy for years –at the expense of his soul, of his sanity, of his Harry…

His.

'_Harry!'_

He'd never forget that sight: his pallid countenance, drenched in blood, the gouged out cavern behind his closed papery lids; and that macabre smile on his face.

"_**I refuse to let you use me anymore, Sev."**_

The red hair and the eyes suddenly made sense.

"_**I refuse to be a part of your illusions any longer."**_

It was all he ever wanted, right? Lily's hair, her eyes… her radiant hair and brilliant eyes…

"_**I refuse… to be a stand-in for a dead woman."**_

Merlin, had Lily died at all? In his heart, she always seemed to be just there –unreachable, yes, but constantly present. What had happened? He seemed to have lost it all in the blink of an eye.

'_Harry! Harry!'_

"_**It's time to let her go, Sev."**_

'_Harry! Harry!'_

"_**It's time to let her go. I did, you can too,"**_

That day, Severus Snape lost his last chance for redemption. It would always seem like it had just happened yesterday to him though. Weeks, months, years may pass, but he would not forget any bit of it.

"_**Let go, Sev."**_

It was Harry's last words.

**01010101010101010101010**

He burned the hair –all of it, and an acrid stench wafted up his aquiline nose. He burned it up together with all of the things that once resided in their rooms. It was a huge muggle bonfire in their backyard.

The last thing that he had to burn was a photograph –two men with their arms around each other, laughing and smiling, identical silver bands adorning matching fingers on each of their left hands.

He had loved him, right?

"_**Let go, Sev."**_

He dropped the photograph into the glowing tangerine embers where it shriveled up and blackened instantly.

By morning everything would already be ashes.

Severus walked back towards the house, which was completely empty now –except for a couple of jars.

"_**Let go, Sev."**_

'_But I can't!'_

"_**Please!"**_

'_I'm sorry, Harry.'_

The jars stood side by side on the tiled countertop of the kitchen –one contained the revered pair of eyes –green as a freshly-pickled toad…

The other jar was much larger, also made out of glass. It now held a pair of pale hands, severed from the wrist – both adorned with long, potion-stained fingers –and a sterling silver band around one of the bloody digits. And, if one would look closely, engraved words could be seen: '_Always'._

"_**Let go, Sev."**_

"I did, Harry. I finally did."

**01010101010101010101010**

Sometimes people let go, not because they want to, but because they could no longer hold on.

*****FIN*****

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**A/N: What do you think? Personally, I don't know what to make of this, but I kind of liked the ending this way. I had been so depressed lately because no one was reviewing my chaptered fics and I reckoned that nobody's liking them so I wouldn't update those in the meantime and I'd just focus more on my angst-filled one-shots that my muse seems to like writing whenever I'm in this sort of funk. No, that was not a plea for reviews, but I'd really like to know what you think. Even a PM would do!**

**In the meantime, me and my buddy Darwin ****(that1BEAUTIFULboy****) are throwing prompts and writing challenges at each other. Try to visit my profile page sometime in the future if you want challenges and prompts for your use. Pick out one and let us know how it works for you. –C.**


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